page_title: Varuna
section_title: Etymology
hierarchical_section_title: Varuna / Etymology
caption_attribution_description: English: Sculpture on Rajarani Temple, Bhubaneswar, India Français&#160;: Sculpture sur le temple de Rajarani, Bhubaneswar, Inde
context_page_description: Varuna is a Vedic deity associated initially with the sky, later also with the seas as well as Ṛta and Satya. He is found in the oldest layer of Vedic literature of Hinduism, such as hymn 7.86 of the Rigveda. He is also mentioned in the Tamil grammar work Tolkāppiyam, as the god of sea and rain. He is said to be the son of Kashyapa.
  In the Hindu Puranas, Varuna is the god of oceans, his vehicle is a Makara and his weapon is a Pasha. He is the guardian deity of the western direction. In some texts, he is the father of the Vedic sage Vasishtha.
  Varuna is found in Japanese Buddhist mythology as Suiten. He is also found in Jainism.
context_section_description: In Hindu tradition, the theonym Váruṇa (Devanagari: वरुण) is described as a derivation from the verbal root vṛ ("to surround, to cover" or "to restrain, bind") by means of a suffixal -uṇa-, for an interpretation of the name as  "he who covers or binds", in reference to the cosmological ocean or river encircling the world, but also in reference to the "binding" by universal law or Ṛta.
  Georges Dumézil (1934) made a cautious case for the identity of Varuna and the Greek god Ouranos at the earliest Indo-European cultural level.
  The etymological identification of the name Ouranos with the Sanskrit Varuṇa is based in the derivation of both names from the PIE root *ŭer with a sense of "binding" – the Indic king-god Varuṇa binds the wicked, the Greek king-god Ouranos binds the Cyclopes. While the derivation of the name Varuṇa from this root is undisputed, this derivation of the Greek name is now widely rejected in favour of derivation from the root  *wers- "to moisten, drip" (Sanskrit vṛṣ "to rain, pour").
caption: Varuna iconography at the 11th-century Rajarani Hindu temple.[8]
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